`Cost of war' too much for Walter Reed, vet says

Durbin asks to put Duckworth on panel

March 12, 2007|By Jeff Long, Tribune staff reporter

Tammy Duckworth saw young soldiers that were horribly wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq come home to fight other battles against the bureaucracy at the troubled Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Sometimes they got lost in the system--or in their own depression--and never showed up for therapy.

The overworked staff didn't always have time to find out whether there was a problem, said Duckworth, a National Guard major who lost her legs in combat.

"We called them the missing patients," she said. "There was nobody keeping track of where they were."

Duckworth spent 13 months at Walter Reed after a rocket-propelled grenade struck the helicopter she was co-piloting near Baghdad in November 2004. Her husband, Bryan Bowlsbey, also a National Guard major, was with her during her long months of rehabilitation.

"He wasn't going to put up with any bureaucracy," she said. "But it's really different for the 19-year-old who has a brain injury and six months in the Army. He doesn't understand the system."

Duckworth was a congressional candidate last year and now is the director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has asked President Bush to appoint her to a commission that will look into allegations of poor care and dilapidated conditions at Walter Reed.

The commission also will do a comprehensive review of care provided to the wounded by the U.S. Department of Defense, which runs Walter Reed, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Duckworth said it is important to appoint a recently wounded veteran to the commission, someone who has been through Walter Reed or other military hospitals and can provide firsthand knowledge of the system and its flaws.

She said she would welcome the appointment so she could find out whether military hospitals and VA facilities are getting everything they need.

"I would be honored to serve because it's about taking care of my buddies," she said.

Duckworth said she knows from experience what is needed for the country to take care of its wounded warriors.

"I am exactly the kind of patient that is taxing the military medical system and will drain the VA resources," she said. "If that is the cost of the war, then the American people should be told that is the cost of the war."

Duckworth, who praised the doctors, nurses and staff at Walter Reed, said she sailed through with relative ease, other than the grueling work of rehabilitation. About 100 outpatients were being treated when she was there, compared with roughly 700 now.

A social worker and a therapist made sure her accommodations were comfortable at Fisher House, the outpatient home where she lived for nine months. She was told where she was supposed to be and when.

"It's like living in your very rich relative's house," she said of Fisher House.

According to published accounts, some wounded soldiers said they received little guidance about life as an outpatient and had to get around the sprawling 113-acre Walter Reed complex on their own after their discharge from the hospital.

"My social worker had probably 30 or 40 patients," Duckworth said. "He's probably taking care of hundreds now. When he was taking care of me, he was already working a 70-hour week. I can't even imagine what his workweek is like now."

Duckworth said she noticed some signs of maintenance problems at Walter Reed.

There was a cockroach in her hospital room once, and she saw mice at Mologne House, another building where outpatients and their relatives live. Some of Duckworth's family stayed at Mologne House during her rehabilitation.

She said she doesn't think that "Building 18," described in recent news stories as a dilapidated wreck with mold in the walls and holes in the floors, was in use when she was at Walter Reed.

Duckworth said she wanted to know whether the former lodge was opened too soon because of the constant stream of wounded soldiers arriving from Afghanistan and Iraq. She also wants to find out whether contracting out janitorial services led to the poor conditions there.

At the same time, Duckworth said she wonders whether funding decreased for Walter Reed facilities after the military medical complex was listed for closing in 2005. Funding should have increased as the number of patients grew, she said.

Meanwhile, she said, some of the paperwork required of recently wounded vets can be overwhelming, and there are too few people around to walk them through it.

For example, a properly filled out "post deployment survey" can be crucial for vets years after they get out of the service. Properly describing combat conditions might be critical in awarding benefits later for such things as post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Duckworth said many young wounded soldiers and their families don't understand how important that information is. She and her husband tried to help others with their forms during her time at Walter Reed, but she worries about others who have no such guidance.